Long time, no post and all of that. Work, parent, write; work, parent, write.

Slowly starting to edge back to SCA stuff again, starting with some garb research. Poking around Gale Owen-Crocker's Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, I saw her mention that it's thought the decorated bands and patterned fabric visible on some 7th-9th century illuminations were silks (as opposed to embroidery or the illuminator having fun with decorations).

So I start kicking around the idea of a gown with decorated silk bands at the wrists and hem, possibly down the front (although that's more Frankish than Saxon). And I find pretty quick that the best source for modest amounts of highly decorated silk is sari shops. And pretty quickly after that, I have a dozen bookmarks of various saris decorated in about the right ways to be cut up into trim.

Then I wonder, hey, is this what Pintrest is for?

I hop over there and try and look at a few pinboards; none of the pictures want to load. And there's all the copyright infringement I suspect slapping up other people's images entails.

Anybody out there use Pintrest? What for? What do you like and dislike about it, and would you recommend it as a way to quickly organize Internet-based research?

Is that such a crazy idea? You could still go and see a doctor if you were having trouble finding one that worked for you, just like you could go if OTC sinus remedies weren't fixing your cough or runny nose. We've successfully shown that yes, most of us know when we have a yeast infection and when it's something else (Hint: The Monistat didn't work) and so *those* medicines are OTC now. Can we maybe be trusted to be Big Girls about our birth control, too?

(I actually did find the text of that Arizona bill online. They really did strike out the language that prohibits employer discrimination against women taking the Pill, even if they pay for it out of their own pocket.)

All right, it was the ceiling, not the sky. My mother-in-law's ceiling, at about seven in the morning, at which point the kids had already been up for an hour and a half.

Thankfully, no one was under it when the several square foot hunks of plaster came crashing down. We hustled the kids onto the porch so that they wouldn't try to eat old damp plaster. This was Wrong and Bad and resulted in much whining and crying until we were packed up and in the car. (To be fair, it was a long weekend and they were low on sleep because they GOT UP AT 5:30)

Brother-in-law came to the rescue later, getting the rest of the creaky ceiling down safely.

Yep, still around, still checking LJ daily. Just not posting much. Well, at all.

According to my latest training, social networking will get my children kidnapped, my house burgled, my laptop stolen and make me an easier target for spies to work over. So there's something of a chilling effect, there.

And... not a whole lot to post about. It's rather obvious work would rather I not talk about work, even if it's UNCLASS. The kids are kids, doing pretty well. Spud's got some developmental delays and is in a county preschool to get some help with them. Boo has discovered stairs, may God have mercy on our souls. We're the parents of two under-5 children, so of course we're stressed out and burnt out and compulsively worrying about getting everything 'right' and/or whether we're doing enough/the right things to address the developmental delay. But there are definite improvements and good signs and life is actually not bad and they're ferociously adorable. But I'm not into daily blogging my frustrations with parenting, so we skip that. Possibly I should blog more about the adorableness, just to help me focus on it more.

I'm still treasurer for the local SCA group, but am not doing too many events (see: two under-5 children). I've started writing again - have been for about a year or so - but it's (gasp, horrors) fanfiction. I've learned some interesting things about writing to spec as a result; it's all very much informed by my experience as a performer and learning to read an audience and give them what they want. I haven't forgotten that I was kicking around the idea of writing a hack novel and may yet attempt it; now that I've managed to churn out two 30K-word novellas of fanfic, I've even got a better idea of what that entails, and confidence that I can do it.

"'Aguilera completely dissed both the ramparts and the fact that they were gallantly streaming.'

No, you did. You have dissed the ramparts and must apologize.

You remember sentence analysis from school? Please go read the first verse of the Star Spangled Banner. It is the "broad stripes and bright stars" on the flag (the song is about the flag you know) that were "gallantly streaming."

Not the ramparts. Ramparts do not stream unless one is hallucinating, or perhaps if a nuclear weapon has gone off nearby.

Hint: the song is about the flag surviving a battle at a fort, so maybe a rampart is some sort of fortification right? Bigger hint: use a dictionary if you don't know what a rampart is. Giant hint in the internet age: google > "define: rampart"."

- "chris111," commentor at the Washington Post, in response to Jen Chaney's short piece on the national anthem as sung at the Super Bowl. I'm just... wow.

She came across the radar because of the above-linked "fat people are disgusting" post. It's bad. It' so bad, I've read comments from many who thought it was satire at first, because it's just that over the top. Fat people walking across a room is aesthetically displeasing; apparently fat people should go hide from sight until defatted. (Which obvs isn't happening because they're too dumb to know about eating right and exercising, but Maura will helpfully tell us about it!) But she's not a hater; she has plump friends.

Yes. For real. Unironically.

In horrified fascination, I read a few of her columns. Granted, not all. Three, perhaps four. They seemed to follow a pattern: "Here is something I read about somewhere! I really don't know anything about this, though. But I'm going to tell you all about my uninformed opinion anyway!"

The writing is just bad. It's not funny. It's not engaging. It's not interesting. It would be right at home as an advice column in a high school newspaper, perhaps, where one expects to see uninformed opinions passed around authoritatively.

I'm baffled that Marie Claire apparently pays for this. Of all the struggling authors out there, this is honestly the best that they could find?

Unless you are editing the 'edgy' obscene humor-n-sex rag on campus, listen up. If a piece comes across your desk, and that piece is full of really hateful and derogatory language...

...no, I get that you're a student paper. Of course you're going to want to stick it to The Man or The Feminists or whomever your writers have decided is the Root of All Evil this week. But make them use grown-up words instead of playground insults, mkay? ...

...really full of that crap, stop a moment. Go to the author and ask, "The hell were you thinking?"

And if that author says, "But it's a satire!"

Stop.

Do not print.

98% of Americans can't tell the f'ing difference between parody, satire and sarcasm. College students know that satire is an Important Literary Device and will try to slap that label on any piece of garbage they write that's offensive.

Can satire offend? That is its purpose; of course it can! But chances are, you have not been presented with an incisive work of satire. You have been presented with a screed, either sarcastic (in which case the tone will not convey well in print) or genuine, and the author is hiding behind the 'satire' label when s/he realizes that People Who Matter are taking exception.

If you are in doubt, consult an expert. An English professor should in theory suffice. Otherwise, send it to me. If I get enough, I will open the Satire Certification Society. We will license Americans to write satire. If the author can present proof of membership is the SCS, then s/he has demonstrated a firm grasp of the principles of satire and the chances are good that the piece you are looking at is, in fact, a satire. Otherwise, refer the author to your campus obscene humor-n-sex rag.

(Prompted by the JHU 'bison' piece, which fails as satire on at least two levels.)